Italy: Government issues decree amendment in attempt to strengthen Albania plan

Rome: This week, the Brothers of Italy (FdI) Party issued an amendment to the migration flow decree. This amendment calls for the Court of Appeals to decide if migrants should be held in Albania instead of leaving the decision to the migration judges at the Rome tribunal.

The Italian government continues to pursue its plan to process non-vulnerable asylum seekers in Albania. To this end, on Tuesday (November 12), it announced it was going to issue an amendment to the decree it passed regarding a list of ‘safe countries’.

The amendment aims to try and change the process for confirming whether or not a migrant can be detained in the Gjader center in Albania. The government hopes, through the amendment to move jurisdiction for the decision making process from judges at Rome’s migration tribunal to the court of appeals.

Sara Kelany, a member of FDI presented the amendment late on Tuesday evening, calling the amendment a “regulatory adjustment.”

The adjustment was announced after the second group of migrants that Italy had attempted to send to Albania was returned to Italy. The government said their amendment did not represent a change of heart in their plan, but was an adjustment to ensure the detention of migrants.

Italian Premier, Giorgia Meloni, intends to move forward with the project signed with Albanian Premier, Edi Rama. Bringing asylum seekers to Albania successfully is considered fundamental for implementing a deterrent effect on departures.

The Italian government has long accused the judges in Rome, who are experts in the field of migration, of holding opinions counter to the government’s strategy, and being too favorable to migrants.

If the amendment works, the government would be able to have its cases heard in front of just one judge, Giuseppe Meliadò. Any appeal would then be referred directly to Italy’s highest court the Court of Cassation.

“While Meloni is silent and does not defend our sovereignty from Musk’s attack, her majority, act with the favor of darkness against the judiciary branch,” stated Debora Serracchiani, Italian Member of Parliament with the Democratic Party.

“We stand before a previously unseen judicial monster, they change the judges instead of reflecting on the absurdity of the Italy-Albania agreement”, she added.

According to Riccardo Magi (of the + Europa Party), “to cover the failure of the Albanian experiment, the government and the majority continue to compulsively intervene absurdly in the law.”

Even one member of the ruling coalition, the Forza Italia Party is calling for caution. “This proposal could have an abstract plausibility to solve the judicial contrasts that emerged in the past days but I believe it needs an additional screening of a technical nature. In the coming days we will speak with Minister Nordio,” said Senator Pierantonio Zanettin.

The organization representing judges and magistrates in Italy, the National Magistrates Association (ANM) called for an immediate halt to the changes and amendments. According to its Secretary, Salvatore Casciaro, the law will make the “definition of the status of asylum seekers slower, with the risk of prolonging the time these persons stay in Italy even for those who are not entitled to it.”

Furthermore, he added, the Court of Appeals would be likely to experience bottlenecks and they are “already swamped with work.”

The migration flows decree is expected to be discussed in Parliament on November 26. It will then have to go through the Senate for final approval. It remains to be seen if the Libra — currently docked in Messina, Sicily — will try its luck for a third time once the legislation, if as expected, is confirmed by parliament. At that point though, the outcome of the judicial questions will probably not have been finally decided.